Well, allright now!!
The New York Times in their Personal Journal for Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 has
published a list of sites where you CAN get if for free, if you are really
into the oldies: 1910 through 1930 or so....

1907 - the dawn of rock?

 

UC Santa Barbara's Cylinder Preservation and Digitalization project  lists almost 6000 songs !!

 

 www.cylinders.library.ucsb.edu
The collector, Tom Morrison, offers some 2200 songs from the 20's and 30's by rural Southern musicians.  (This is a HOT site)

 

 http://www.juneberry78s.com/sounds/index.htm
The Library Of Congress is not to be outdone. One can hear 108 recordings made by Emile Berliner, the man who invented the gramophone -

 

(These 108 only)
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/berlhtml/berlhome.html
A location called the Internet Archive proudly offers 793 early 20th Century 78's "fer yew to sing an' play"

 

 http://www.archive.org/details/78rpm
Still looking for more? The mother lode is at the Library and Archives Canada Virtual Gramophone collection which has a whopping 5000+ pre-1940 songs free for the ownloading!  Go, Johnny, Go! http://www.collectionscanada.ca/gramophone/index-e.html

Now, should you visit my humble shack o' records, note I DO NOT HAVE ALL THESE DISKS!